Any "Uncooks" in the house?

[bitchkitty]

Last summer I ate raw for over 3 months. I lost a lot of weight and felt FABULOUS - I actually started aging in reverse, as crazy as that sounds. Skin very clear and healthy, eyes clear (and my vision improved!), and a general feeling of well being. Sometimes I even wake up smiling. If you knew me, you'd know just how big of a deal that is.

Come winter I went nearly raw, usually fruit and greens in the morning (green smoothies!), salad at lunch, and a cooked vegan dish for dinner. I used to average 2 sore throats a year and a bad cold with each season change. I have not had one respiratory/throat illness this past winter.

Zucchini hummus is one of my favorite recipes, and I make a walnut/zucchini dehydrated cracker that is soooo buttery tasting. My standbys are organic baby field greens, onions, zucchini, tomatoes, avocados, and every kind of fruit. I try to stay lower in fat but have to have some or I get too skinny. I use mainly olive oil, sesame occasionally.

I get a lot of inspiration from The Rawtarian. Here's the recipe for the aforementioned zucchini walnut crackers:

http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-cracker-recipe-buttery-walnut-zucchini-crackers

You need a dehydrator to make them - I supposed you could bake them in a very slow oven though. I prefer dehydrated since I want to keep all those lovely enzymes intact!

[KC]

1. Those

do sound good. I'd like the recipe
of the zucchini hummus!

[bitchkitty]

4. Here it is, posted it a few days ago:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/115725500

[livetohike]

2. Thanks for this link

The crackers sound great and I've bookmarked the site.

[Melissa G]

3. Very inspirational!

Thanks for posting!

[Nay]

5. I'm interested in your comment about feeling so much better after eating raw for 3 months;

can you elaborate on that? I'm a type 2 diabetic so I have to be careful about eating too many carbs, but I can work around that, I believe. I am VERY interested in feeling better, however, and I wonder if you would mind telling me more details about that. Do you think I would have the same good results if I went, say, 3/4 raw?

Those crackers are very diabetic friendly; I've bookmarked that site.

Thanks for any advice you can give me!

Edited to add: In addition to being diabetic, I also have constipation problems that I hope going raw will help. (Not IBS - colon is just glacially slow - had all the tests.)

[bitchkitty]

6. I think that as a diabetic you would benefit greatly

from a raw or nearly raw lifestyle. You don't have to eat the simple carbs, although many raw foodists use maple syrup or agave syrup as a sweetener (not really raw, since both are processed above 118 degrees). My mainstay is greens - I'll easily polish off a 1 lb box of those in a day. A squeeze of lemon, a little EVOO - heaven!

You may be a little gassy at first until your body gets used to it. Some people say that blackstrap molasses taken with psyillium seed will help that. I don't have that problem any more - it took my body about a month to get used to it.

Google Mimi Kirk on Youtube - she's in her 80s and follows the raw lifestyle - she is fully raw I believe. She looks damned good - she certainly doesn't look like a woman in her 80s. Also google Fully Raw Kristina - she has a lot of good tips and recipes for eating raw. She's a distance runner who consumes over 2000 calories a day of raw food - much, much more than I could ever handle!

Also, IncredibleSmoothies.com is a good site. She has a lot of green smoothie recipes as well as other raw recipes.

If you can stick with it for just 2 weeks -something like a green smoothie in the morning, big giant salad at lunch, and a raw or cooked vegan meal in the evening, with raw fruits, dehydrated crackers, and veggies for snacks - I guarantee that you will feel SO FREAKING GOOD that you will want to keep on.

Listen to me, I'm preaching! I used to hate people who preach, yet here I am. A true believer, I guess...

[Lucinda]

7. Thanks for the link and post!

I do eat a lot of raw foods, and I have been sloooooowly moving back to a vegetarian lifestyle. The link will come handy - and those crackers sound yummy!

Editing to say that the "White Chocolate" bars at the website sound awesome too!
http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-white-chocolate-bars